Roma ... day 1

Rome was everything I had imagined it would be and more. I've always been fascinated with the idea of Rome. I was utterly addicted to HBO's gorgeous series with the same name. I love reading historical fiction especially when it is set in ancient Roman times. So it was very possible Rome would not be able to live up to my fanciful version. Rome not only lived up to, but far surpassed my imagined version of the capitol.

We made it to Rome after a restful 3 hour train ride from Venice. And immediately the atmosphere of our trip changed. We went from almost tranquil Venice to the bustling, alive, packed - nearly overrun - city of Rome. After checking into our apartment just off the bustling, happening Campo di Fiori we walked to the Pantheon.

Even with the scaffolding covering half the front facade and the stifling crowds, which we would later learn was nothing compared to the Vatican crowds, the Pantheon was awe-inspiring. It was a great start to our walk. For a little revitalization Richard found a great gelato find, Della Palma. The crowds, again, were crazy. They must have had about 60 flavors for sale. After our gelato refresher, we hit Trevi Fountain  - another place absolutely crawling with people. Then we made our way around to Bourghese Park, the Spanish Steps, Piazza del Popolo and Piazza Navona. Piazza Navona is the setting for the Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi, which was unfortunately being cleaned therefore completely covered with plywood and scaffolding. Being thoroughly exhausted we somehow gave in to Angelos's charms and ate dinner at his touristy place on Piazza Navona. It was overpriced and definitely not the best food, but the atmosphere of the piazza at twilight was just perfect. And watching Angelo wrangle more tourists in made for quite a show. We gladly retired that evening after one more gelato of course. This time at Giolitti. My amaretto and caramel combo was delightful though it was hard to beat Della Palma's biscotti and Irish whiskey combination. Next up the Vatican.

The Pantheon

Trevi Fountain

Spanish Steps

Bourghese Park

Piazza del Popolo

Piazza Navona

Trevi Fountain at Night

The Sinking City...Venice

After all our St. Patrick's Day fun, we headed out to Italy, Venice & Rome.

First up was Venice. And after all our fun, we really needed a vacation from our vacation, so to speak. So we mostly rested in Venice, enjoying the fresh seafood and seeing a few of the sights. I think we had more gelato than recommended, but it was delicious. Richard was more ambitious in his flavor choices. He tried adventurous choices such as celery and kiwi. Those flavors do not go well together as you might have assumed. My favorite and what we decided was definitely the best gelato in Venice was La Boutique where I had to-die-for chocolate mousse and chocolate chip flavors. I took notes at all the gelato places and I had to smile when referencing them just now because I wrote a giant OMG with an arrow pointing at the chocolate mousse. I think that sufficiently describes my love of La Boutique chocolate mousse. It was the only gelateria we visited twice.

My favorite meal was Al Covo which unbenownst to us was hosted by a Texan, Diane, and her Venetian husband/chef. Diane and her husband met in Austin while working in hotels. She's originally from Lubbock and makes delicious Texas-style desserts. Her chocolate cake is a taste of home and the fried cream with strawberry purée is Texas State Fair worthy. I mean that with the highest regard so I hope Diane wouldn't take offense. It was mouthwatering. She and her family have lived there 20 years now and she still has her West Texas accent. Just goes to show you there are Texans EVERYWHERE! Richard & I both enjoyed every course we had at Al Covo, but there were a couple of standouts. The gnochetti with calamaretti was amazing. Richard's black spaghetti with scampi was pure Venice - fresh and flavorful.

I also really enjoyed our lunch at Met, which took us on a culinary tour of Venitian dishes. It's a Michelin starred restaurant which means "fancy food". We enjoyed it all, but probably our favorite part of the experience was the water menu. We let our server decide for us after she asked a few questions to determine our water tastes. Richard was quiite doubtful that one of them was better than the others. And Richard's quite genuine remark upon the first sip, "Oh, that is good water." Favorite dishes were the scallops with caviar & foam and the spinach canolli with spider crab. The folks that claim Venice has no good food have never eaten where we ate. Delish!

Wandering the streets, bridges and canals of Venice was by far our favorite activity. Definitely the best city to just get lost in. Some of my other favorites were bellinis at Harry's Bar where they were invented, fantastic tiramisu at Alla Rivetta, served in way I've never seen before in a little tin pie pan, St. Mark's Basilica where the remains of St. Mark are under the altar and the entire giant church ceiling, walls and floors are done with the most beautiful tile work I've ever seen, and finally the lagoon island of Murano known for glass making. Venice was truly an amzing retreat. However, we did run into one problem, our bank cards were having issues working at the Italian ATMs so we had a Bourne Identity style dash around the bridges and alleys of Venice trying to find a ATM that would accept our card before our train departed for Rome. We did make our train with 5 minutes to spare. More pictures of Venice and then on to Rome...

St. Patrick's Day!

We began our St. Patrick's Day celebration with the evening before. Since everyone has St. Patrick's Day off work that is the night for late night fun. So after our relaxing day of touring Wicklow, we gussied up and hit the town. We did a mini-pub-crawl from Harcourt street down to Grafton Street, seeing some traditional Irish music at one pub and drinking way too much Guinness as usual. Dawson Pub - of "probably the tiniest pub in the world" fame - even got us for one pint.

Then it was on to Cafe en Seine to meet up with the Spainards (David's friends were visiting from Spain). Cafe en Seine isn't exactly Irish, but a large bar on Dawson Street with great crowds and dancing. That's Irish enough, plus, the lines had started forming outside every bar and we felt it was too late to move to another pub. So, that's where we stayed for a few hours until closing. It was all fun and games, until Siobhan had notice her purse had been stolen from the purse/jackets pile. This could have been more disasterous since she was traveling to Lisbon the morning after St. Patrick's Day. But luckily, her passport wasn't in her bag,.So though it was a pain, and very traumatic at 3 in the morning, the world didn't end. We all chipped in to get her enough travel money since banks are closed St. Patrick's Day and her debit card was in the purse. And she ended up having a good time in Lisbon. We avoided a few bar fights dealing with suspected purse theives and headed home. It's amazing how many suspected purse theives there are at 3am when you have a several drunk American and Spainards searching for a stolen purse. No cabs were to be found with these crowds and the train stopped at 1am, so we walked most the way home before finally finding a cab. This meant our group slowly got separated with several distractions on the street like hot dog vendors, girls, and anything shiny. Eventually everyone got home even if one not-to-be-named person did walk the LUAS tracks all the way home so he wouldn't get lost. Smart, except it is a 500 Euro fine. Luckily he wasn't noticed. But we all made it home for some attempts at a board game by 5am.

After such a fun night, I wasn't sure everyone would be up for St. Patrick's Day. But that's why they were all here, so everyone got up and moving by 11am. Although no one would have moved as fast if I hadn't mentioned the parade was starting at noon. Angie leapt out of bed and got everyone moving. I've never seen somone so excited by parades. Unfortunately our group couldn't get that many people awake and dressed in time to see it live so we had to settle for the telecast. Richard made some green mimosas and not-green Bloody Marys and we got the day officially started. Sarah, Siobhan and her brother, Kevin, joined us for breakfast and then we headed to St. Stephen's Green. We hit the Duke, Stag's Head, the Bankers (for those who couldn't get into Dame Lane) and Dame Lane. I'll let the rest of the day's story be told in pictures. I only wish I had pictures of the drunk people that couldn't get into Dame Lane stealing sandwiches and arguing with the bouncer about why they should be let in. But we had great weather, great friends, great Guinness. It was another perfect St. Patrick's Day.

  

Happy St. Patrick's Day 2010